![]() We encourage sisters to participate in the mission work of our church, daily devotion, reading of Bible, prayer and being faithful stewards of God. Sisters’ Fellowship aims to help sisters to grow spiritually, exercise their faith in their daily life and to grow in faith. The eventual end-point of the YF is to build up spiritually mature, God-fearing, independent young men and women who will form the next generation of church leaders. They serve to cultivate, encourage and nurture the youth as they develop into adults. Adult mentors serve as real-life role models (with their own imperfections and faults) as they share their own struggles, challenges and triumphs in their walk with God. ![]() Through these activities, the YF hopes to draw the youth closer to each other and forge a strong bond as they learn to serve God together and be a source of support for each other through their growing years. Through a partnership between adult mentors and the youth themselves the fellowship gives opportunities for members to decide the direction of the fellowship, as well as to exercise leadership through leading worship, planning and executing activities. It seeks to equip them with the correct principles which will guide them in making the right decisions in their lives and nurture them as they develop their own gifts. It serves as a platform for youth to discuss contemporary issues and how it relates to Christian living. And of course, it is possible to use our knowledge of the Scriptures to gain honour, approval, and prestige for ourselves, and it is possible for us to look especially good when we can show with contempt how others are inferior or unknowledgeable or less evangelical or not “Bible-based.The Youth Fellowship (YF) caters to young people aged 13 to 20 years. It is possible to know all the content of the Bible, without knowing personally the One to whom the Bible points. But it is possible for all this to remain merely academic knowledge, to become a substitute for letting the Scriptures bring us personally before the face of God. The teaching and study of our Bible, and the discussions and reflections that arise from it (we call it “theology”) can be fascinating and stimulating. We would be wise to hear the warning today. Jesus’ words haunt me because this problem is not just confined to the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. In short, their problem: right book, reading it the wrong way. As Jesus says, the whole point of the Scriptures was to point to him, the Messiah, the embodiment of God’s love, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. But they were never meant to enable us to look good or to impress others. It is not that the Scriptures or Law-observance was bad. We see a glimpse of this from Paul’s biography before he met the risen Jesus, when he said he was advanced in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries, and was extremely zealous for the ancestral traditions (Gal 1.14). Many in Jesus’ day had taken the good gift of Scriptures and turned it into a tool used to impress each other, to receive glory from one another. ![]() You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.… How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (39–40, 44) One of their incapacities has to do with how they related to the Bible: Those who would judge Jesus were themselves being judged, and found wanting. Many were not in a fit condition to understand the significance of the evidence before them. No, the problem was - to continue the imagery of a trial - that these self-appointed judges were themselves contaminated. The problem was not with the evidence or testimony. They should have been able to come to a right verdict on who Jesus was and what he had come to do. In John 5, those who accused Jesus, and those who stood around watching and listening, had all the evidence before them. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |